商业周刊大幅报道纽约大学(5万学生)宣布取消所有的可口可乐自动贩卖机,起因是两年前哥伦比亚工厂的劳工被披露人权问题……很难想象这事情是如何关联的吧?请阅读吧:
BIGGER PROBLEMS? Hancock says CKC (Campus Kick-off Cola) is still hopeful that Coca-Cola will address its concerns and institute "a new and transparent human-rights policy." Tannenbaum says the university will lift the ban if Coke agrees to an investigation as proposed. Coca-Cola's University Commission has been at a standstill since early November. The five student representatives who resigned in protest have not yet rejoined. "We need to make a decision about how to proceed," says Scott Nova, executive director of the WRC, who sits on the commission. "That will happen relatively soon." A Coca-Cola representative says the company is willing and open to further discuss the issue. But Coke may find itself in a bigger predicament as time passes. In the two years since the NYU campaign began, allegations that Coca-Cola permitted human-rights abuses and environmental degradation in countries like India, Ghana, Turkey, Indonesia, and Guatemala have gained media attention and support on college campuses in particular. Three weeks after NYU announced its ban, the University of Michigan followed suit, citing questionable behavior by the company in India and Colombia. Coca-Cola says it's developing a global workplace-rights policy that it will adopt at the end of the first quarter of 2006.
PR NIGHTMARE. The cost of losing a customer like NYU, which doesn't have an exclusive contract with Coca-Cola, is difficult to gauge. (An NYU spokesperson didn't know the value of its business with Coke.) But the public-relations hit of losing such a trend-setting school might make any executive wince. "Just like Coca-Cola, NYU is a brand. We're a dream school, the school of [TV series] Felicity, and we make news," says Hancock. Soon Cadbury Schweppes (CSG ) brand RC Cola will replace Coke and Minute Maid in NYU's vending machines and dining halls. Will the preferences and buying behavior of NYU students follow? "Coca-Cola better pay attention to these students," says Tannenbaum. "They're going to be [its] consumers for the next 40 years."
Wednesday, January 18, 2006
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